The following may seem exhaustive, but trust me, it’s not! At the beginning of any year I take on I tend to be more detailed at noting things. Then, as time passes, momentum inevitably downshifts. So that partly explains why some films are documented more than others here (why so much Diner? I didn’t even really like Diner!), regardless of quality. But I tried my best to represent the last 10 months of working through my 1982 Watchlist. This is the last post I will be doing for 1982. I will be tweeting out my honorable mentions and my Top Ten By Year: 1982 next week and then getting started on my next year: 1969!

Enjoy! At the bottom of the page I’ve put a sampling of some of my favorite shots of 1982. I have many many more highlighted on twitter (@cinephile24)

Share your favorite bits from 1982 films in the comments!

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1982: Geeky. Sleazy. Bleak.

Main takeaway from 1982: it really does feel like the last half of Boogie Nights

Have I mentioned that 1982 is bleak? Because it’s pretty damn bleak (The Snowman, White Dog, The Thing, The Plague Dogs, The Last American Virgin, Shoot the Moon, Missing, The World According to Garp, Halloween III: Season of the Witch, Class of 1984, The Thing, hey good lookin’, Smithereens, Liquid Sky, Veronika Voss, Woman of Fire 82, The Border, Der Fan, Xtro, E.T. The Extra-terrestrial(resolved ending aside)

I love subversive happy endings, especially the one in Summer Lovers, an exuberant statement on the fearless feasibility of unconventional relationships.The film gleefully, and admirably, commits to dodging expected threats of conflict at every turn. It does this at the sacrifice of effective storytelling, which, weirdly enough, I’d argue is worth the trade-off.

Speaking of romantic subversiveness, the indelible small-town warmth and charms of Who Am I This Time? Love discovered in fiction through fiction.

Pleasant surprises (movies I wasn’t expecting to get as much out of as I did): The World According to Garp, Summer Lovers, Rocky III

Watching E.T for the first time since its 2002 theatrical re-release. The most emotionally draining movie-watching experience I’ve had in years (that says a lot; I’m a big crier). It left me shaken for days afterwards. It also confirmed the long-established fact that I have a very difficult time with stories where a creature and/or animal is befriended but the threat of man/government and their laboratories jeopardize everything! (I’m looking at you, The Plague Dogs) (see also: The Iron Giant, Splash)

My well-documented (via Instagram) state of shock over the insanity of the last 30 minutes of The World According to Garp

Movies driven by New Wave and/or punk music in soundtrack and content (Der Fan, Starstruck, Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains, Smithereens, Urgh! A Music War)

As a rule I see films through to the end, but I could not for the life of me get through Tempest. by the time Raul Julia says “I want to balanga you with my ‘bonijoni'” to a 14-year old Molly Ringwald, that was the sign to peace out.

“Coo-oo-oo-ool riiiider” and the song ending with Queen Pfieffer singing & dancing off into oblivion as the music follows her, hilariously fading out as she gets father away (Grease 2)

Ray (Raul Julia) getting fired in One from the Heart. One-take comic gold

Tom Atkins, my imaginary mortal enemy, playing a doctor of all things, and one that, of course, gropes and sleeps with all the ladies (Halloween III: Season of the Witch)

The look of heartbreak on Jeff’s face as Mr. Hand eats his pizza (Fast Times at Ridgemont High)

It’s a Kinski kind of year (Nastassja in One from the Heart & Cat People; Klaus in Fitzcarraldo, Burden of Dreams, Android, The Soldier)

Speaking of: Nastassja Kinski, where have you been all my life???? (One from the Heart, Cat People)

Dennis Hopper at his most authentically unhinged in Human Highway

Deeply unsatisfying and discomfiting virginity loss scenes in The Last American Virginand Fast Times at Ridgemont High

Those red pumps in Tenebre

When I had to write a screenplay for a class, I covered it in songs off of “Crazy Rhythms” by The Feelies, one of my very favorite albums. So it was a dream come true discovering that a film, a great film no less, already exists that employs “Crazy Rhythms” as a major component of its DNA (Smithereens)

The literal dick-measuring contest set to “Whip It” in The Last American Virgin. I am still trying to convince my eyes that yes, they did in fact see this.

Every single second Kimmy Robertson is onscreen in The Last American Virgin

Come Back to the Five and Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Deanbeing the moment I realized that I will eventually see every single thing Sandy Dennis ever appeared in. Is she my next Patty Duke? Stay tuned….

The warped slow-motion soundscape hell of Linda’s bathroom escape in Next of Kin

Color palettes fit for the gods in Querelle and One from the Heart

The Rambo crying scene in First Bloodcuts deep, man. Cuts real deep.

The tongue-in-cheek cut that transforms ‘mother’ into ‘whore’ (Vice Squad)

Mickey Rourke’s hair and general physical beauty in Diner

The scene between Paul and a prostitute in his van in Smithereens. For some reason it’s the scene that resonates most

Crystal Gayle’s voice is what I hear every time a garbage Christmas cover comes on the radio (One from the Heart)

The terrible ‘cutting edge’ synth scores of Androidand Xtro

Collective murder in the boutique (A Question of Silence)

Pair Shoot the Moonwith The Squid and the Whale for a no-holds-barred double feature about the ugliness of divorce and the ways children get nudged into the crosshairs

May I henceforth be known as the girl who never stops yammering on about The Last American Virgin

The performance of 1982 for me: Karen Black in Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean. The perfect confluence of a. Black’s nuance and expression of the minutiae of Joanne’s interiority and b. Altman’s camera watching her like a hawk in hiding, prioritizing her perspective with a sensitivity and nuance rarely seen. A significant and layered trans woman character in *1982*.

I didn’t think I ever needed to see another movie about horny boys again but somehow The Last American Virgin‘s unique combination of unapologetic crassness with streaks of fear and ambivalence proved me wrong. An essential case study on the “nice guy”

“Me and my rhythm box! Me and my rhythm box!” (Liquid Sky)

Wishing cult actress Paula E. Sheppard had appeared in more than two films (Liquid Skyand Alice, Sweet Alice from 1976) because her Adrian in Liquid Sky is the most distressing element of a distressing film. Somehow, I see shades of Elizabeth Berkley’s performance in Showgirls?

Hot Guys of 1982: Maxwell Caulfield in Grease 2, Steve Antin in The Last American Virgin, Mickey Rourke in Diner, Brad Davis in Querelle, Kurt Russell in The Thing, Christopher Reeve in Deathtrap, Harrison Ford in Blade Runner, Raul Julia in One from the Heart, Peter Weller in Shoot the Moon, Peter Gallagher in Summer Lovers, Sean Penn in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Christopher Walken inWho Am I This Time?

Embracing the fantasy and theatricality of the movie set (One from the Heart, Come Back from the Five and Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, Querelle)

The year Cher begins her career as a serious actress (Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean)

Can we bring back the Savage Cuts-Like-A-Knife Freeze Frame Ending? (Shoot the Moon & Smithereens)

Steve Martin pouring the “java” in Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid

The end of The Snowman, and what it must have communicated to 3 year old me.

The best dumb thing I saw in the films of 1982: the underwater animated musical sequence in The Pirate Movie (clip available on my instagram)

Coups in transparently unnamed countries (Missing& The Year of Living Dangerously)

Being so unprepared for the raunchy and joyous Tab Hunter-led “Reproduction” number in Grease 2

Every single thing Isabelle Huppert wears in La Truite, but particularly her sweater with “Peut-etre” on the front and “Jamais” on the back. Iconic.

Sara’s outburst at her husband late in Losing Ground (“Don’t fuck around then!!!!! Don’t take your dick out like it was art-ist-ic, like it’s some goddamn paintbrush. Maybe that’s what’s uneven, that I got nothin’ to take out.”)

The smart, direct, and sometimes surprising scene transitions in Tootsie

Jessica Harper trying to tell a joke in My Favorite Year

Given my lifelong ambivalence towards Diane Keaton, her shattering work in Shoot the Moon is doubly something to behold

White Dog. I don’t even have a specific thing to say about it except my God, White Dog.

The Cannes montage in The Last Horror Film: billboards, beaches and boobs (clip available on my instagram)

I like The Thing, quite a bit, but I’ve seen it five times and just have to accept that there will always be this weird barrier between me and it

The breakthrough mainstream feminist film of the year is….about a man (Tootsie) (PS; love you Tootsie) (yes, I know this is reductive but just go with it)

The genius bit part of the construction worker in Q: The Winged Serpent: “You sons of bitches, if anyone ate that sandwich, I’m going to shove the thermos up your asses one at a time” (clip available on my instagram)

Jack Nicholson’s delivery of “I married a banana. I married a fuckin’ banana” (The Border) (clip available on my instagram)

The wonders Christine Lahti does with her TV interview scene in Ladies & Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains

Ellen Barkin’s heartbreaking delivery of “I did something. I did something wrong” in Diner

Jack Nicholson giving what is possibly his best performance in The Border. Such keenly interior work, the antithesis of what we think of when we think of A Jack Nicholson Performance

Sean Penn’s delivery of “Hey, you’re ripping my card!” in Fast Times at Ridgemont High

“You never mean tehhhhhhhhhh” (Friday the 13th: Part 3) (clip available on my instagram)

Kevin Bacon’s delivery and elation over “I’ve been waiting to use that ketchup bottle for WEEKS! For WEEKS!” in Diner

Lesley Ann Warren’s delivery and elation (“YAAAAAAAAY!!!”) over the “reveal” that Victoria is Victor in Victor Victoria

Assault; it’s everywhere, even if a few of the films themselves won’t acknowledge it (Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, Diner, Victor/Victoria, Visiting Hours, Eating Raoul, Blade Runner (?), The World According to Garp, Vice Squad, Class of 1984, Liquid Sky, Xtro)

George: You played a tomato for 30 seconds – they went half a day over schedule because you wouldn’t sit down.
Michael: Of course. It was illogical.
George: YOU WERE A TOMATO! A tomato doesn’t have logic. A tomato can’t move.
Michael: That’s what I said. So if he can’t move, how’s he going to sit down, George?
(Sydney Pollack and Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie)

“You know you have an amazing knack for holding onto the thread of a conversation”
(Victor to his wife Sara in Losing Ground)

“You must be dead, because I don’t know how to feel. I can’t feel anything anymore.”(Henry Thomas, E.T)

“You always remember the wrong things”
(Shoot the Moon)

“I realize it’s best to live through stories before creating them”(Godard’s Passion)

“Making love to your daddy is a rare and beautiful thing”
(Shoot the Moon)

“I think Dorothy is smarter than I am”
(Michael (Dustin Hoffman) in Tootsie)

“Why are you pushing me?”
(Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) in First Blood)

“You know, if you’re in a jam he’s probably the best guy to have around. Even though he probably put you in the jam to begin with”
Burt Young talking about Jon Voight in Lookin to Get Out

(A Question of Silence)

Boogie: What’s your name?
Jane: Jane Chisolm, as in the Chisolm Trail? (rides off on horse)
Boogie: What fucking Chisolm Trail?
Fenwick: You ever get the feeling there’s something going on we don’t know about?(Diner)

“He made fun of me in front of everybody, including myself”
(Querelle)

“We have to articulate ourselves, otherwise we would be cows in the field”
(Werner Herzog,Burden of Dreams)

“I just killed Mr. Leech, you know, Mr. Leech from the bank!”
“Yeah well I just stepped on Mr. Snail from the garden”
(Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov in Eating Raoul)

25 Favorite Images of 1982 Films:(no order; most function as still images I love, but unsurprisingly many are served better within the context of the film and/or movement)

Blade RunnerLosing GroundThe Last American VirginThe World According to GarpDer Fan (Trance)White DogIdentification of a WomanOne from the HeartToute une nuitTenebre (the motion of this shot is critical to its greatness)One from the HeartGodard’s PassionGodard’s PassionTime MastersThe Last Horror FilmShoot the MoonRocky IIIPersonal BestSmithereensNext of KinLiquid SkyLa TruiteFriday the 13th Part 3Five Element NinjasLadies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains